The Enigma Syndicate

Monday, March 13, 2006

Sadaam Will Be Hanged

The trial of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and seven former aides resumed before the Iraqi High Tribunal on Sunday. Speaking on Iraqia state-television just before the trial resumed, the court’s chief prosecutor, Jaafar Mussawi, said Saddam would hang immediately without undergoing further trials if found guilty and sentenced to death in the present case. Saddam is on trial for crimes against humanity in connection with the killing of 148 villagers from Dujail,north of Baghdad, after he escaped an assassination attempt there in 1982. “If the court passes a death sentence on any of the defendants in the Dujail case, the law is clear, the sentence must be carried out within 30 days following the appeal,” Mussawi said. As for other cases (in which they have been charged), the court will only judge live defendants as those executed cannot be tried, he added. Saddam and others have also been charged in connection with other crimes, including the use of poison gas during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq against Iraqi Kurds in Halabja, in the north of the country, and the crushing of a Shia revolt in the south of the country following the 1991 Gulf war. Saddam’s trial, which opened in October, moved Sunday into its 15th hearing with defendants expected to start testifying as to their role in the killing of 148 villagers from thevillage of Dujail. At a later stage, the court was due to adjourn for the panel of five judges to consider specific charges against each of the defendants.

This should have been done about a week after they found Sadaam. I first thought he would be given lethal injection, then I realized that it would be the Iraqis dealing the justice, so there would be no "cruel and unusual punishment" speech.

The Drumbeat Continues: Connection Between Iran and Al-Qaeda

President Bush directly linked Iran to the deaths of American troops in Iraq, saying roadside bomb components have been tracked to Tehran. "Tehran has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks by providing Shia militia with the capability to build improvised explosive devices in Iraq," Bush said in a speech. He cited recent congressional testimony from John Negroponte, the U.S. director of national intelligence. Bush said "some of the most powerful IEDs we are seeing in Iraq today include components that came from Iran.""Coalition forces have seized IEDs and components that were clearly produced in Iran. Such actions, along with Iran's support for terrorism and its pursuit of nuclear weapons, are increasingly isolating Iran," he said. The charge is particularly noteworthy because of U.S. concerns over Iran's nuclear weapons program. U.S. military intelligence sources say the more sophisticated IEDs – or improvised explosive devices – they are seeing in Iraq have been traced to Iran's Revolutionary Guard or Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week accused Iran of sending Revolutionary Guard agents into Iraq to foment violence against U.S. troops and Iraqi government forces.

So there is a connection between Iran and Al-Qaeda. First it was between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, now its between them and Iran. This may be so, but why am I not surprised that evidence would turn-up just after the United States has said that 'military action' could be taken against Iran if it continues with its nuclear program?

I really take a great interest in reading feminist blogs (in general). Not because I really care what they think, but because of what they say. Their entire pathetic existence revolves around abortion. The moment someone hints at it being made illegal, their little world seems to spin off it's access.

"That's right, say goodbye to your humanity!" Their fragile little worlds collapse and immediately they think America will become Hell where women are raped and forced into polygamous marriages, abortion is punishable by death, and women are made to be reproductive tools used by the government.

While offering more convenient access to data, the service will stoke debate about the dangers of storing so much personal data on Google systems. Google recently squared up against the United States Justice Department, which has subpoenaed a limited set of data on Google search habits, drawing an outcry from privacy advocates.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

The People Have Spoken

Citizens have proposed an amendment to Michigan's constitution establishing that a person exists at the moment of conception.

The designation would give any unborn child constitutional rights of due process and equal protection.

A backer of the proposal, Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, said the petition drive is "vitally important if we are to insure that Michigan becomes a pro-life state after Roe v. Wade is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court."

The people have spoken. All that's left is the 'waiting for the black robes to shoot down another Citizen-driven bill.' Funny, isn't it, that a government that supposedly is run by the People, is shot-out from passing their own bill by the Judges in Black Robes.

I Didn't Think Saying This Was Possible

"It's outrageous that the Muslims are protesting intolerance and blaming Israel for disrespecting Christian sites," said an aide to Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, who asked that his name be withheld out of fear of retaliation by local Muslims. "It is the Muslims who are leading a campaign against us to the point that most of the Christian population from Bethlehem and Nazareth had to run away." Sabbah spoke at a protest yesterday orchestrate mostly by Muslim leaders who blamed Israel for the acts of Haim Eliyahu Habibi, a Jewish Israeli who together with his Christian wife and daughter entered the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth Friday with the firecrackers concealed in a baby stroller. The church was built on the site believed to be the place where an angel told the Virgin Mary she had been chosen to bear the son of God.Habibi's daughter told reporters her father was motivated by "economic distress." Israeli police officials told WND Habibi has a history of "mental problems" and that they were "familiar" with his files. In 1999, Habibi reportedly visited PLO leader Yasser Arafat and requested "political asylum." Arab Israeli leader Mohammad Barakeh called Habibi's attack "an attempt todrive a wedge among the Arab population." Ahmad Tibi, an Arab Muslim Knesset member, said, "There are those who want to continue to separate between Muslims, Christians and Druze in order to make their mission of weakening the Arab minority easier. I am proud that the Muslims defended the Church of Annunciation and I am sure Christian Arabs would not hesitate to defend mosques." Arab Israeli Knesser Member Taleb El-Sana, a Muslim, blamed Israel for the churchattack. "The act [by Habibi] is the result of Zionism's insane policy, which destroyed mosques, desecrated churches and shows no tolerance toward other people's holy sites. ... Islam equally sanctifies the places holy for Christians and Muslims."

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

You Have A Right To Feel Good About Murder, Remember?

Many abortion organizations, including Planned Parenthood now include a “chaplain” on the payroll whose job it is to help clients overcome their “guilt feelings” for having killed what few now deny is a human child.

Advances in sonogram technology were hailed by the pro-life movement as a great help in the argument for the humanity of the unborn, but this has not necessarily translated into moral comprehension.

Kirsten Moore, spokesman for the Reproductive Health Technologies Project says a focus group showed that women who see the pictures of their unborn child on a sonogram are as ready to kill as they ever were. “Women who are thinking about ending a pregnancy are not asking, ‘Is this a life?’ They know that it is. They are asking, ‘Can I take care of this baby?” Moore told Newsweek.

Despite the best efforts of pro-lifers the result, at least among committed abortion activists, is a further distancing from the fundamental notion that it is wrong to kill. The shift may be one that pro-lifers are not prepared for.

“We’ve really moved onto the next rung of the ladder haven’t we?” Jim Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition commented to LifeSiteNews.com. “What do you do when they admit that they are killing babies and claim the right to feel good about it?”

“Abortion was bound to lead to this and the idea has finally sunk in,” Hughes said. “We have made the case for the humanity of the unborn only to convince the abortionists to claim the right to kill human beings without guilt. It’s a moral shrug. How do you argue with a shrug?

They want to feel good about doing something wrong? Ah, so they are acknowledging their actions, they acknowledge their feelings and their conscience in regards to abortion, yet they still want to go forward with it. It's now all making sense.

I'm just waiting for the day when they acknowledge that it's murder and that it's wrong, but they still want to go forward with it because it's unjustly called 'wrong' and they believe it's a right.

RIAA Does It Again: No More CD Ripping

In a filing to the US government concerning digital rights management the RIAA and other copyright industry associations said the fact that CD ripping is widespread does not make it legal.

"Nor does the fact that permission to make a copy in particular circumstances is often or even routinely granted necessarily establish that the copying is a fair use when the copyright owner withholds that authorisation," the filing stated.

"In this regard, the statement attributed to counsel for copyright owners in the MGM v. Grokster case is simply a statement about authorisation, not about fair use."

This is a complete reversal of the RIAA's previous policy. In last year's Supreme Court MGM v. Grokster case a representative of the RIAA described ripping a CD and putting it on an iPod as "perfectly lawful".

"It is no secret that the entertainment 'oligopolists' are not happy about space-shifting and format-shifting," said the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a statement. "But surely ripping your own CDs to your own iPod passes muster. "

Wow, as if they couldn't make themselves even more despised or do more harm to the music industry, they now don't want to allow ripping.

They just don't get it, do they? Maybe when CD profits drop even further, they will come to their senses, although, knowing their infamous record, they will probably just blame it on piracy and try to pass more laws and ban more actions.

Prosecutors Reconfirm His Guilt....Again

Prosecutors at Saddam Hussein's trial presented a document Tuesday they said was signed by the former leader approving the executions of more than 140 Shiites in southern Iraq after an assassination attempt in the 1980s.

After about two hours of hearing documents, the court adjourned until Wednesday.

The document was among several presented by chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi concerning the killings of Shiites from the town of Dujail in 1982.

A memo from the Revolutionary Court, dated June 14, 1984, announced that 148 suspects had been sentenced to death by hanging and listed their names. The prosecutor said the signature on the memo was that of the court's head, Awad al-Bandar, one of Saddam's co-defendants.

A document dated two days later was a presidential order approving all 148 death sentences. The paper was signed by Saddam, al-Moussawi said, displaying the document with the signature on a screen in the court room.

The sentences were passed after an "imaginary trial," al-Moussawi told the court.

"None of the defendants were brought to court. Their statements were never recorded," he said.

The documents were presented after Saddam's lawyers ended their monthlong boycott of the tribunal.

He should have been shot the moment they found him. This trial is a circus and has gone nowhere, except re-re-reconfirm what everyone already knows: Sadaam is guilty. But let's waste some more money on trying to prove this again since, I guess, everybody deserves a trial, even dictators such as the likes of him.

Yay for Anti-Americanism!

A federal judge has ruled against a public school teacher who filed a lawsuit after administrators removed Christian-themed postings from his classroom, including a depiction of George Washington praying at Valley Forge and news clippings about the faith of President Bush and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

William Lee – a Spanish teacher at Tabb High School in York County, Va. – was represented by the Christian public-interest group Rutherford Institute in U.S. District court, arguing his free-speech rights were violated.

The postings, removed at the beginning of the 2004-05 school year after a parent complained, included news articles about Bush's Christian faith and Ashcroft's prayer meetings with staffers.

So Much For Peace; West Bank 'Intifada' Is Feared

With a large increase in the number of shootings, stabbings, stone and Molotov cocktail attacks against Israelis the past few weeks, Israeli security officials today said they fear the violent trend might indicate a plan by Palestinian terror groups to launch a new intifada, or "uprising," against the Jewish state, focused mostly against Jews in the West Bank.

The warning follows a widely circulated article in which leaders of all the major Palestinian terrorist organizations told WorldNetDaily recent events here are leading their groups to initiate what they called a third intifada against Israel, consisting of suicide bombings, rocket attacks against Jewish communities and "a few new surprises in our arsenal."

So much for peace from the Gaza scenario. The West Bank is the next powder-keg of violence on the list of volatile areas to avoid. And to add to the surprise (sarcasm), Palestinians are now beginning an 'intifada' against the Jewish state, Israel.

The third intifada.

It's interesting, isn't it? There's scores of millions of Arabs over there, many of their countries are loaded with nuclear weapons, most of them have weapons, and a lot of them are violent. So the question that reigns throughout history is: why can't that annihilate that country? How hard can it be? They don't even need weapons, they could just walk over to the country and take it by sheer numbers.

Revelation gives clearer details on the future attacks on Israel, if anyone's curious. It probably won't be the Arabs leading it, though, since for hundreds of years they are inept in the military operations area, as with the leadership.